Temptation
by Aelan Greenleaf
Summary: The two lovers dance a dangerous and deadly dance. PostHBP, HG


Title: Temptation

Author: Aelan Greenleaf

Rating: G+

Category: Angst/Romance

Summary: The two lovers dance a dangerous and deadly dance. Post-HBP, H/G.

Disclaimer: None is mine. Forever and ever.

Note: Should be working on my other story. Am finding Lily slightly challenging. But no worries, it _will_ be done!

* * *

He looks into her eyes.

She looks into his eyes.

Locked in by each other, they dance a dangerous dance.

"I love you, if that's alright." she whispers, but with defiance in her tone and on her face.

He grins, but sadly and only superficially, as if the warmth of such an action was artificial, unreal. "I love you too, but that means nothing here and now."

She steps forward, only slightly, but it means everything. "There's no one else around, darling." she says, drawing out the final word, and gesturing with her arms to the empty space around them.

She is right. He smiles again, with eyes that stay dark and weary, and he steps back only slightly, but it means everything. "You would be the one to know, now, wouldn't you, my love?" Two soft coloured orbs flash in the semi-darkness.

With a single careless motion, she flips her hair back over her shoulders and unleashes a grin of her own. It seems snide, uncaring, frozen, as if she pulled it from a memory of what a smile should look like, but can't quite grasp it. "Do you think so little of me?"

A single syllable is her answer. "Yes."

Her hands go up in a motion of mock distress. "Really, honestly? Even after all this time? I was your one, your only, your 'everything'." She sneers at him, repeating the last word with such sarcasm that he can feel a tear come, unbidden, to his eye. " 'Everything'. You are so bloody naive."

"You were too, once," he whispers, his soft voice catching, "When we were both untainted, before the War."

Revulsion seems to come upon her beautiful features, and mangles them into a grotesque expression. "Untainted? You really are so naive, so blithely innocent, so unaware, aren't you? Patiently awaiting the day where you will triumph, winning by pure strength of heart and will!" Her voices climbs to a apex, and her expression drops. "Pathetic." She reaches into the folds of her obsidian robes, and retrieves a long, elegantly carved wand. She moves into a battle-ready stance.

"This is the end, it seems."

He brushes away the lone tear, retreating into his mind like he had so many times before, and fetched his scarred wand from within his own grey garments. He says nothing as he faces her, but he can remember a time when those eyes burnt with love, not hate; when her body touched his in passion, not in anger; when her mouth spoke only of compassion and not of despair. But those days were gone, gone with the time of before the War.

And then everything grew blurry in his mind and he threw himself completely into the battle. They fought fiercely and without bounds or holds, for there was more at stake here than simply their lives. Their souls, their loves, their bond was at the centre of their struggle, as they shot incantation after incantation, charm after charm, and even the Unbreakable spells. A moment passes that was all future and time, and finally, finally, a blow strikes home. One of the dancing shadows falls from grace and tumbles to the cool floor below.

He bends beside her, the adrenaline still pumping through his veins, though goose bumps of sorrow and grief erupt onto his skin. She lay writhing on the ground, and he knew that something strange had happened; that their spells had collided in the air and hit her with great force. Her lungs gasp for air as she begins to fade on the ground.

"My love..." he breathes, unable to finish his words. He looks down into her eyes, and she looks up at him then, as his cool tears tumble onto her clammy cheeks; then something clears in her vision.

"You can't fight fate, Harry," she mumbles, half-coherently, but the words reach him all the same. "I did, and I do, truly love you."

"I love you too, Ginny, but you can't stop me." A hand reaches up and caresses his face; he presses his one warm one against it. "The Order was wrong to think you could stop me." He moves her hand away, and he can feel that she is almost gone. He stands up, and her last vision is of him rising up above, like some corrupted demi-god.

And as she fades into the netherworld of death, Ginny can hear his deceiving voice so clearly upon the sudden howl of the wind:

"You don't know how tempting the dark can be..."


End file.
